


Changeling

by telemachus



Series: Rising-verse [39]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Clothes, Gen, Ithilien elves, Oops, Peredhel, but only a little this time, elves are weird, elves make mistakes too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 03:56:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3963496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telemachus/pseuds/telemachus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An unexpected discovery changes someone's life.</p><p>(written for teitho challenge, prompt "Raiment", but did not place.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Changeling

“Poor little thing – her mother’s dying, and – then what will become of her?”

“Lord Elboron won’t let her be turned out to starve?”

“No – surely not – but – with no father – and her mother no better than she should have been – there won’t be many who will want her.”

“She’s a handy little thing though – good with her fingers – can sew a seam better than many – and she doesn’t need much feeding – surely someone will have a place for her? For all she looks so small – she must be what – near fourteen now – no child.”

“Oh yes, by rights she should be earning her keep already – well, she is – little keep as she needs – but – she’s not quite right in the head, they say – childlike still.”

They mean no harm, I tell myself, but their gossiping hurts – for all I know it is all true – for all I know they think they speak soft enough I cannot hear, but here where I am sat on the other side of the hall there must be some kind of trick to the ceiling arch, I think, for their words are clear as though I sat by them. I keep my head down, and concentrate on my sewing, not wanting to think of what they speak.

Truly, I do not really understand – oh, I understand that Mother is dying – that I have no father to claim me – and what that means about both her and I – but I don’t understand, not really, why their words seem not to touch me, why – why sometimes I can feel so remote, so outside all this.

Why sometimes, the sound of a song only I can hear can entrance me, leave me dreaming, lost in wonder for hours.

Why at times like this I can stare into the fire, and drift away, and see only the patterns, not thinking, not feeling, not understanding this – this grief and mourning they seem to think I should feel.

 

 

 

Unnatural they said.

Cold they said.

Unfeeling.

Heartless.

Inhuman.

And so – so I take myself off into the woods.

I don’t know where I am going, or what I hope will happen.

I just – need to get away from them all.

I don’t weep, there are no tears in me. I don’t scream, or wail, or tear my clothes, or cut my hair as they think I should.

I simply – run – not fleeing, not exactly, but – needing to find something.

I kilt up my skirts, I do not listen to their shocked protests, and I run, steady but fast, a pace I can keep up for – I do not really know how long. I have never been allowed to try.

Maybe now I can.

I am looking for – something.

I will know it when I find it.

So I think at first. But – the sky darkens, I run on, the sky lightens again – and – I have not found it.

But – there is a tree.

It is not what I was looking for, but – it is a friendly tree.

I climb it, and curl up, drifting into dreams.

 

 

 

 

“A child in a tree? How is that something you need come running to me over? Elflings climb trees. That is what they do.”

“Not an elfling. A child. A Man-child. She – at least, we think it is a she –“  
“- long skirts – “  
“- that must be a she –“  
“- asleep we think – “  
“- or dead –“

“Dead?!”

“No, not dead, I told you, they sleep like that – “  
“- you said they shut their eyes – “  
“- but how do you know –“  
“- when did you ever see a sleeping Man?”

“Wait, wait, wait, you have found a child – a girl-child – not an elfling – up a tree – and she is asleep – and you left her there – all alone – to come and find me?”

There is silence, and I open my eyes to see the group of elves approaching below me.

I have never seen elves before.

When they come to speak with the Lord Elboron, children are not supposed to run around them. We are hustled away – there is talk of elves stealing children – I know not why, now I think about it – why would elves want children? I remember Mother always wanted me to stay well away, always warned me no good would come of elves.

But.

They are singing. They sing – they sing the song that is in my head – the song that no other hears.

How can this be?

The tall, impatient one, the one who is perhaps some kind of leader, comes towards me; I must have moved enough that he realises I have woken. He stretches out his hand, and smiles at me, and then speaks,

“Come down, little one, we will not hurt you. Were you lost? Would you have us take you home?”

He sounds – as though he speaks a tongue not his own – and I realise suddenly that the conversation I heard before was not – not in Westron, nor the Numenorian of the court, like though it was. It was some – elvish tongue, I suppose – and I do not know how I could understand it – but sweet it seemed, and melodic – the way words should be.

Puzzling at this, I do not move.

He sighs, and then begins to climb towards me – moving easily – no hesitation or thought required – until he sits beside me.

“Did you climb up here and then – can you not get down?” he asks, “little one, what is the matter?”

Still I cannot answer – I can only look at him, and then at the others, and – and wonder what I am to do now? 

Only trouble comes of elves.

But – I do not wish to stay silent in a tree forever.

“I can get down,” I say, and I do, though not as easily as he, my skirts tangling round me.

Standing on the ground, I realise they are all tall – and – for the first time I feel really – scared. The one who spoke to me sees it, and makes a gesture – the others back away, and he – he crouches easily beside me so that our heights are closer.

“Are you hungry?” he asks, “you must have come far – from Lord Elboron’s dwelling? Will you eat with us and then return?”

I shake my head, and feel my kerchief slipping – as I suppose I should have expected it to before – it is not seemly to let my hair fall loose, to show my deformity, and I reach to grab it, but it slips further, and – and then I hold it in front of me as something in his face changes.

“Little one,” he says, and then – then he stretches out a hand to me and – and pushes my hair aside as he looks at me, “little one – I know your face – Finrusciel – where have you been hidden? Tell me – tell Caradhil – and – and why do you wear such clothes when you are no more in need of them all than I?”

I do not know what he means – it is only later I find that he refers to all the layers and skirts and petticoats that are suitable for a near-grown girl, but anathema to an elf – and so I clutch at the kerchief, thinking I should replace it,

“I – I must keep hid my – my ears, my hair,” I say, repeating words I have heard so often, “they mark me out as – as untrustworthy, peculiar.”

But my voice dies away as I look at these – elves – with their pointed ears, their hair in all the bright colours of leaves in autumn, of burning flames, and – and I do not resist when this leader takes my kerchief from my fingers, and scrunching it into a ball thrusts it into his pocket, his movements sharp with some repressed emotion.

 

 

 

“She must be – I remember Finrusc saying – there was some – misunderstanding – some maidservant – but then – he fell, he was killed – and there had been so many – misunderstandings – over the years – he was always one to get into – difficulties – it never occurred to me that this last time had been more serious,” Caradhil, as I now know he is, sighs, and continues, “ah, my sweet Legolas, I miss Finrusc, he was a good friend for many years; though perhaps not overburdened with sense. He would have loved a daughter – he must have been fonder of her mother than he ever said – if only we had known.”

The prince, as I am told he is, looks at me, and then away, and I see him clench his hand tight as though in pain, “The mother – she would not have known Finrusc dead? She would have thought – thought he did not return because he cared not? Ai, poor woman – and to live on – so long. She must have been strong indeed.”

Caradhil touches his ear gently, and strange though the gesture is to me, I can read the support he gives, this not-quite-brother, or whatever he is to the prince, as he says, “Strong yes, but – who would not be with a child to care for? You have none, Legolas, or you would know how it is. The poor peredhel though. To grow up uncombed, not from lack of love, but lack of knowing – to think her ears are a deformity that must be hid – to not understand why days flit by – why she grows so slow – ah, so many, many things to confuse.”

Legolas looks at me again, and this time he speaks to me – to me – a prince to speak to me – elves truly are different, 

“One thing, your hair is at least as it should be – in that it is fortunate you are female – but we shall have to find you a comb – and teach you song – and – so very much. But – trust me – there is no question that you shall ever again need for anything. You are one of us now, we have found you, and we take care of our own. Your father was a good elf, and you are welcome for his sake as well as your own. There are plenty of elflings here – soon enough you will have friends – a group to comb with – though for now, we had best ensure you become known to all.”

I bite my lip, anxious, and still a bit confused,

“I thank you, your highness,” I say, trying to find the right words, “I – I will try – but – there is so much to learn.”

He smiles, and his face lights up in amusement,

“You are an elf. And you are home. We learn skills quickly, worry not.”

“Besides,” Caradhil adds, “anyone who can learn to run and climb in those horrendous skirts and draperies, can learn to do anything they want to. But now – go and – meet the trees. And Finrusciel – no more of this,” he drops the kerchief into a basket of rags, and I feel a relief at the knowledge I need never again hide and shrink away from eyes, “hair and ears are all the glory of an elf. No hiding. Nothing made by Eru should be hidden from shame.”

And for all I still feel – exposed – in these new clothes – for all I am still reeling at the change to my life, at the thought of, they say, wearing even less in warmer weather – for all the prince’s kindness is beyond anything I could have hoped – it is the twitch of his nose as Caradhil speaks that really makes me feel at home.

It is a gesture I have been rebuked for so many times.

**Author's Note:**

> Elboron - son of Faramir, Steward of Ithilien from FA82
> 
> Finrusciel - daughter of Finrusc. I assume she will choose, or acquire, a "proper" elven name, but at this stage they are simply using the patronymic - her human name would not feel right, being shared with others and having no meaning - and they are also keen to emphasise her place with them, her shared heritage.
> 
> In case it needs saying - the issue with the kerchief is that she is being forced to cover a part of her body because it is considered a "deformity". Elves (my elves!) wear clothes for practical reasons only, or because the colours & so on please them....and they consider their bodies to be works of Iluvatar, and so pretty near perfect......


End file.
